Institutional endogeneity and third-party punishment in social dilemmas

This paper studies experimentally how the endogeneity of sanctioning institutions affects the severity of punishment in social dilemmas. We allow individuals to vote on the introduction of third-party-administered sanctions, and compare situations in which the adoption of this institution is endogen...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Marcin, Isabel (Author) , Robalo, Pedro (Author) , Tausch, Franziska (Author)
Format: Article (Journal)
Language:English
Published: 17 April 2019
In: Journal of economic behavior & organization
Year: 2019, Volume: 161, Pages: 243-264
ISSN:1879-1751
DOI:10.1016/j.jebo.2019.03.007
Online Access:Verlag, Volltext: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2019.03.007
Verlag, Volltext: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268119300782
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Author Notes:Isabel Marcin, Pedro Robalo, Franziska Tausch
Description
Summary:This paper studies experimentally how the endogeneity of sanctioning institutions affects the severity of punishment in social dilemmas. We allow individuals to vote on the introduction of third-party-administered sanctions, and compare situations in which the adoption of this institution is endogenously decided via majority voting to situations in which it is exogenously imposed by the experimenter. Our experimental design precludes the self-selection and signaling effects that arise when subjects can vote on the institutional setting. We find that punishment is significantly higher when the sanctioning institution is exogenous, which can be explained by a difference in the effectiveness of punishment. Subjects respond to punishment more strongly when the sanctioning institution is endogenously chosen. As a result, a given cooperation level can be reached through milder punishment when third-party sanctions are endogenous.
Item Description:Gesehen am 11.07.2019
Physical Description:Online Resource
ISSN:1879-1751
DOI:10.1016/j.jebo.2019.03.007